Crafting a Postcolonial (Inter)national Identity: Malaysian Pewter Company Royal Selangor’s Branding Strategies (1970–1992)
以马来西亚家族企业皇家雪兰莪为例，分析前殖民地企业如何通过品牌策略，利用与殖民者的联系和可塑的身份观，在国内和海外获取文化资本，参与后殖民国家建设。
Conventional viewpoints on global branding for design-focused consumer goods presuppose national identities as a given and prerequisite to market expansion, the key examples being Danish design furniture, Swiss watches, and Parisian fashion. Through the case study of Royal Selangor—a Malaysian family firm specializing in manufacturing pewter tableware and gifts—this study analyzes how businesses in former colonies adapt their branding strategies to transitioning ideas on national identities and economic development in the postcolonial era by drawing upon cosmopolitan worldviews of malleable identities and utilizing ties with former colonizers to gain cultural capital domestically and abroad. This study engages with theoretical frameworks of business history, organizational studies, and nationalism to explore how companies in developing countries in Southeast Asia that are also former colonies interact with colonial histories and participate in postcolonial nation-building through branding and entrepreneurship.